Friday 17 April 2015

Site faithful White Wagtail on migration

April always sees a huge number of White Wagtails roosting on the Teifi marsh on migration, as many as 250 some nights.
Once again this evening we were out by Mallard hide ringing a sample of them.
A familiar site with them sitting on the nets, guys and poles not in the net!
Only 11 caught tonight before a Sparrowhawk moved all the wagtails and Hirundines away from that area of the reed bed.
A star bird though was already ringed. A quick check on the data base on my phone (and also looked up by Richard on his phone at Long Point Bird Observatory in Canada!!) confirmed that it was a bird ringed by us one year ago almost to the day, 16th April 2014.

Another White Wagtail ringed the same week was later recovered in Iceland in June indicating where our birds are heading.
Known adult birds are always worth taking an extra good look at the moult.
Now we need a bird with a ring on from its wintering ground! It would be fascinating to know where this bird has been.

Footnote: Pub-quiz trivia - the White Wagtail is the national bird of Latvia. (ed.CJ)

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